A total ban on smoking inside offices, pubs, restaurants and "virtually every enclosed public place and workplace" throughout England will come into force in the summer of 2007 after a resounding cross-party majority of MPs yesterday rejected last minute compromises designed to exempt some pubs and private clubs.

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the health secretary Patricia Hewitt went with the flow of expert, public and backbench opinion, changed their positions during the day and voted to abandon Labour's manifesto position of less than a year ago.

In the crucial free vote, with neither side certain which would prevail, Ms Hewitt's latest compromise was rejected by 384 votes to 184. The 200-vote majority did not include the defence secretary, John Reid.

Health officials proclaimed the vote a historic victory, to be compared with the 1948 NHS Act or the clean air legislation which ended city smog in the 50s. But some MPs predict a backlash among voters who cherish their right to drink and smoke in working men's clubs and the grand private clubs of Pall Mall.

With smoke-free workplaces becoming "the norm", Ms Hewitt told MPs: "Over time we estimate an additional 600,000 people will give up smoking as a result of this law and millions more will be protected from second hand smoke."

That should cut the 85,000 smoking related deaths a year, pro-ban MPs believe. Scotland and Northern Ireland have already enacted public bans and the Welsh assembly has agreed in principle. Ministers also announced an increase in fines, from a maximum £200 to £1,000 for not displaying ban signs, and from £200 to £2,500 for not enforcing the ban.

Yesterday's votes came after a zealous Commons debate on the government's health bill, which even saw Liberal Democrat leadership candidates Sir Menzies Campbell and Simon Hughes defying their manifesto commitment to a full ban.

Both sides in the dispute - 40 years after Harold Wilson's Labour government first promised such a ban - squabbled to the very end over the right line to draw between between protecting public health and individual liberty. Labour's Steve Pound, a self-styled "ashtray monitor" since primary school, made a witty appeal for tolerance and realism - but in vain. Last night MPs first voted 453 to 125 to replace the 2005 manifesto compromise, fashioned by Ms Hewitt's predecessor, Mr Reid, and backed by the then-cabinet. It would have exempted pubs which sell cooked food from the proposed ban, a halfway house intended to allow both choice and time to build consensus.

The Reid formula was denounced as unworkable and wrong by health professionals and trade unions who warned of the dangers of passive smoking for other customers and employees, not least pub staff. Opinion polls have moved their way.

Last night Mr Reid's no vote was joined by cabinet colleagues John Prescott, Tessa Jowell, Alan Johnson, Ruth Kelly and John Hutton, plus 44 other Labour MPs, many from traditional industrial towns with clubs that will be affected or even put out of business. Most Tory MPs including the past three leaders voted no, though David Cameron was absent as his wife gave birth. Eight Lib Dems also voted no.

A majority of MPs, including Ms Hewitt's Tory shadow, Andrew Lansley - who has also changed his position since 2005 - endorsed a replacement clause to confirm ministerial powers to exempt private and residential homes, hotel rooms, prisons and hostels. It would also have allowed Ms Hewitt to exempt 18,500 private clubs, owned by their members and run on a non-profit basis, and therefore just as entitled to "make their own decisions as [people] in their own homes", she argued during the bill's second reading debate in November.

Yesterday she made the clubs' case again, but defied Conservative taunts that her "voice and vote" in debate should go the same way, admitting she had an open mind. Colleagues told her a clubs exemption would be unfair to pubs.

A second vote, designed to decide the clubs issue separately, saw MPs vote by the thumping 200 majority to reject that option. Ms Hewitt's ministerial team, which had been divided, fell into line.

The smokers' lobby group Forest condemned "a double whammy, an unnecessary and illiberal piece of legislation that ignores public opinion and denies freedom of choice to millions of people".